The present invention relates to a flexible self-standing bag, i.e. a bag provided with a supporting structure suitable to support it, keeping it in a vertical position regardless of the fact that it be full or empty.
It is known that containers or bags intended, for example, to hold laundry or shopping items are preferably made of fabric or other flexible material. Such materials provide advantages as to resistance, lightness and practicality.
However, due to the flexibility of the materials they are made of, said bags collapse to the ground when they are empty, whereby they have to be always held by the handles or hung from a hook to keep them in the vertical position, with their opening facing upward.
There are known various types of bags provided with a supporting structure suitable to keep them in a vertical position even when they are empty. Such supporting structures usually consist of a rigid frame, e.g. metal frame, necessarily provided with a certain number of hinges to allow the folding of the bag when not in use. However, the costs for manufacturing said supporting structures and consequently the bags including them are quite high. Moreover, said supporting structures usually have a significant weight.
Therefore the object of the present invention is to provide a bag of fabric or other flexible material which is free from said drawbacks. This object is achieved by means of a bag whose main characteristics are disclosed in the first claim and other features are disclosed in the dependent claims.
A first advantage of the bag according to the present invention is that its supporting structure consists of only two simple separate supporting members, whereby its manufacturing does not require the use of hinges or other connecting elements. As a consequence, the manufacturing cost of the bag including such a supporting structure is very low.
Another advantage of the bag according to the present invention is that it can be folded, so as to reduce its bulkiness when not in use.